


Through Feelings of Uncomfort

by Againstme



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Drabble, Dysphoria, Gen, Trans Duck Newton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 12:46:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16040753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Againstme/pseuds/Againstme
Summary: Duck was always shy as a child. The leering eyes of strangers - family members that only came for the holidays, his parents’ friends - looking Duck over from so far above; praising his clothes, telling him how pretty he looks in them; it all just made Duck’s skin crawl in a way that he couldn’t quite put into words.





	Through Feelings of Uncomfort

Duck was always shy as a child. The leering eyes of strangers - family members that only came for the holidays, his parents’ friends - looking Duck over from so far above; praising his clothes, telling him how  _ pretty _ he looks in them; it all just made Duck’s skin crawl in a way that he couldn’t quite put into words.

Every holiday season, Duck tells his mother about how much he hates it. Though perhaps not particularly eloquently because, really how are you supposed to put such an instinctive feeling of simple  _ uncomfort  _ into words without it sounding like simple regular shyness? Every time, without fail, she kneels down to be eye-level with Duck, gives him a warm smile. Every time, she tells him that he’ll grow out of it soon, and, that if he’s really that uncomfortable, they’ll leave early. A promise she usually doesn’t break, not that it helps Duck much.

When Jane comes along and steals the spotlight away from him, it’s a relief. She doesn’t steal all of the unwanted attention, obviously, but by then, most people know that Duck isn’t one for parties or talking to people he doesn’t know; and most are content to leave him in the corner he’s chosen to stay in.

It doesn’t last as long as he’d hoped. Not because Jane is no longer a center of attention during the holidays because, well, it’s  _ Jane _ , and she thrives around people she barely knows, but because the  _ uncomfort _ , this emotion that’s haunted Duck all his life gets worse, more present, a constant whisper in the back of his mind.

It grows, and it grows, and it grows until what was just a small little knot in his stomach moves up and up and up into his lungs and his throat and his brain; infecting every single part of his body with its malicious intent. 

It grows, and it grows, and it grows until he feels a judgement that  _ chokes _ and  _ stuns _ him coming from every glance in his direction including his mother, including Jane, including his own face in the mirror in his room.

It grows, and it grows, and it grows until he’s fifteen and hasn’t gone to class in two weeks and hasn’t seen his own reflection in at least twice as long.

They must tell his mother at some point, despite his attempts to keep the message from getting to her, because she knocks on his door and sits down next to him on his bed looking more distraught than Duck’s ever seen her. 

They have a long conversation that night; but Duck has so many things to say and so little words to express it all. In the mess of it all, the words that ultimately leave Duck’s mouth seem to break his mother’s heart than any other half-baked thought that he could’ve said.

“Everything is  _ wrong _ .” 

The words stay there, hanging in the room’s silence for hours, years, minutes, until his mom pulls him to her and hugs him tight.

They talk some more and his mother eventually convinces him to go to school the next day.

She’s halfway out the door when she stops and says, “Darling, you know you’re  _ beautiful _ right? No one’s judging you; you don’t need to be scared of people seeing you.”

Duck doesn’t know how to tell her how much those words sting. How would he explain it to her anyway? Duck knows he’s not ugly, Duck knows he’s  _ pretty _ , he’s  _ beautiful _ . But he’s not, he’s not, he’s not any of those words. He doesn’t know why, and while he’s certainly not ugly, he’s not  _ pretty _ or  _ beautiful _ . He’s not… He’s not… He’s not…

Duck falls asleep trying to complete the sentence. It takes nearly six months for him to figure out how to complete it. 

He starts by looking in the mirror again. Inspect his face, and try to find exactly what he finds to be so wrong with it. After a month he cuts off all his hair. It helps a bit. And Jane loves it which is a plus.

Then, he finds a new name, a nickname. It helps a bit more. His mother hates it, it’s way too far from the name she gave him to be a legitimate nickname, but Duck thinks that if he actually got the guts to tell her about how  _ good _ , how  _ normal _ it made him feel, she’d understand and let him him be.

It’s only when he’s emptying his closet to look for clothes he can give to Jane that he realises. He doesn’t have many dresses or skirts, only stuff for special occasions, for those parties he’s always hated. It’s not that he doesn’t like the dresses themselves, but the mere sight of them brings the similar  _ uncomfort _ he’s always felt during events where he had to wear them creep back up with a vengeance. 

He steps out of the closet to show a particular dress to Jane, light purple with a pretty cool pattern if he’s honest, and it just  _ clicks _ .

He’s not… He’s not… He’s not who everyone thinks he is, who everyone thinks he should be.

“I’m not a girl.” The words come out of his mouth without really giving him a second to think about them, and as soon as he says them he looks over to Jane who’s looking at him curiously.

“Weird,” she says, leaning forward to touch the dress and feel the material, “I like the dress though.”

Things get a little better after that. 

He doesn’t do anything about it immediately, he explains his feelings to Jane, as best he can anyway - she’s just six. And he tells a few people at school, but it’s such a small school that it spreads within a few weeks even without telling anyone else. He tells his parents briefly after, and it’s better after that. For a while at least.

It doesn’t take too long for the feelings to adapt and find new targets to hit. Sure, Duck’s not scared of people merely seeing him anymore, but there are doubts now. Doubts and doubts and doubts, piling up in the corners of his mind, growing and spreading until they’re impossible to ignore. 

So Duck does what’s easiest, he runs away. He works himself into the ground in an attempt to ignore the thoughts and, when he’s at the end of his rope and just can’t do it anymore, he misses more school.

His mother noticeably doesn’t know what to say when he tells her how sure he is that everyone just sees him as a quirky girl that’ll grow out of it, and how just that very thought makes it impossible for him to breathe. 

He cries in her arms when two months later they finally manage to get a doctor to see Duck. Things still go slow after that, but Duck’s so close; he’s so close; he’s _so_ _close_. 

Minerva complicates things, but not as much as Duck first feared she would. Maybe Duck’s just saying that because she’s the only person who never messes up on his name.

Duck decides to ask her one day, “How did you know to call me Duck?”

“What do you mean? It’s your name, is it not?” 

“Not legally it isn’t.”

Her head tilts to the side, “I’m not sure what you mean by that, Duck Newton.”

Duck can tell that she’s about to say something else, move on to something more relevant to her goal of convincing him to risk his life for some sort of weird destiny, so Duck asks another question, something that’s always been in the back of his mind since Minerva started appearing to him but that he’d never thought he’d actually ask, “Why would you choose someone like me?”

“You are a chosen one, Duck! Faith chose you, not me,”

Duck sighs and sits on his bed, careful not to accidentally step through Minerva, “You’ve told me that already. I mean, why someone like  _ me _ ?” Duck motions to his body with it’s  _ wrong _ proportions and the curves that don’t belong and its too short stature and finally to his face - too round, too  _ not Duck _ .

Minerva sighs, and, though he can’t really see any of her face to confirm, Duck can tell from her tone that she’s genuinely concerned, “Look, Duck Newton, I know that you aren’t in the place you want to be right now, and that, to my dismay, is not something the destiny I am offering you will do much to change. It is something you must do on your own. But you are getting to where you want to be, are you not?”

Duck’s eyes move from Minerva to the drawer of his bedside table where he’s put his most treasured possession. He just hasn’t been able to build up the nerve to actually inject it yet. 

He looks back at Minerva and nods, “Yeah, I’m getting there.” 

Slowly but surely, he’s getting there.

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on tumblr first, @indridcolds. Hope you liked it!


End file.
